1) Your teacher who trained you is dead? Whats the lineage in your system? Is it traceable? Do you have papers? How's your technique? Can you pull it off on a resisting opponent? Try to validate if your dead teacher ever existed perhaps through forum discussions? Take a class? Talk to the parents? Do they spar? How do they spar? Etc.

2) They disappeared? See # 1

3) Another country? See # 1

4) Monk? Anyone claiming to be taught by a monk or claim to be a monk, or monk it up after clocking out after 5pm... are a higher risk. Not all. But generally I would stay away or tread with care. If I cant validate anything you say then why should I believe you?

FYI - through a simple forum discussion a person who claimed to be taught by someone in Japan was researched by individuals in Japan and found out to be fraudulent and that the picture of the person turned out to be lifted from the local currency and that person never existed. The "teacher" wasnt dead, an alcoholic who went AWOL, in another country, or monked once in high school. The person never existed!

And these "discoveries" have occurred more than once on something simple as a FORUM.

I find it interesting how this thread is beginning to be focused on my last section "External Parties"

Forget this sentence: "Although none of these techniques are absolute standing alone a combination of these procedures will give you more insight and empower you with the proper amount of knowledge to make a more informed decision."

Quote:"Everything applying to Koryu systems should and can be validated"Not necessarily. Some things can be verified through generally accepted history. But as for who is legitimately teaching Koryu, for the most part it's just a matter of whou you choose to believe. The politics has made it that way.Take a look here at the Kondo Sensei thread in the Daito Ryu forum. Kondo Sensei is seen by some, including Aikido-Journal (a respected publication here in the U.S.) as being the inheritor of Daito Ryu. Now they try to paint other Daito Ryu teachers as illegitimate or atleast not teaching Daito Ryu. Yet, it is quite common knowledge in Japan that there are problems with Kondo Sensei's claim. So who do you believe? I was just looking today at another well known and respected koryu web site. They have information about 2 koryu systems, 1 Kenjutsu the other Iaijutsu. I know that both articles contain fabricated information. The one person who they are holding out as "Soke" has changed his own training history on his own web site several times over the last few years. Also, his "sokeship" is widely disputed in Japan. But anyone looking for information on these styles may very well end up not training with a legit teacher based on the politics of this web site publisher.

The same publisher had an article that discredited a very well known teacher of Ninjutsu. Then they started selling books on the web site of one of this teachers students. Suddenly, that article is gone.

The Budo has become totally corrupt and polluted. Rank, titles and now even history and lineage mean absolutely nothing outside of your own dojo.

The fact that YOU have this information and contribute to an open forum proves my point. If someone chooses to come to an open forum as ONE route to obtaining some information on a prospective school they have some sort of a fighting chance to gather enough information to make a more informed decision.

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"I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey"

We even had somebody from Australia show up on the forum, she (if memory serves) was taking lesson from a guy that later (and many contintious discussions) proved to be spinning his claims---and as I recall stuff was being put by him on the certs he was giving students that he was not allowed to use--legally.

People talk, word gets around--and that is just one person on one forum and only time recently.

Edited by cxt (11/15/0701:38 AM)

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I did battle with ignorance today.......and ignorance won.
Huey.

Let's try and peel this martial onion! Yes, this should be fun. Do please note my questions were ~hypothetical~ I look forward to seeing how you, others might respond to such answers.

<< 1) Your teacher who trained you is dead? Whats the lineage in your system? Is it traceable? Do you have papers?

Is their a paper trail? Or a trail of any kind that you/I can objectively do the ~guided audio tour~ in reverse correct? Lets play this tape:

"...Smith now dead, trained with Dewey (a direct student of the founder), Jones, and many others more peripherally in the martial community in the late 50's and early 60's as was common practice of the era. He was a student directly for an unknown number of years with Dewey and then Jones (in his legendary inner city school) because there are no written records existing from that period, Dewey vanished from the face of the earth, and Jones is now dead and the respective group(s) went supernova splintering, and factioning several years prior to Jones actual death upto the present day. The peripheral groups from which Smith studied (rank claimed) will not respond to multiple verification requests. Their leaders who were in their 40's and 50's at that time are also now dead of natural causes. Smith's ranking cannot be verified with any certainty. He trained (and taught) with Smith for 9 years..." A long line of corpses and no governing bodies in sight.

~Hey would you mind making me a copy of your certificates, I want to check and see if you are real or fake~. Make sure people who signed them still love you, are alive and or that they do say what we both hope they say... my ability to read Tibetian/Japanese/Chinese/etc. has major limits

<< How's your technique? Can you pull it off on a resisting opponent?

Technical competance is a dangerous proof game. Lots of dangerous frauds exist. Tough and skilled are different creatures. But I understand your point. I was secretly hoping there were ~verification methods~ I hadn't thought of re: ~foreign study~ claims.

<<4) Monk? If I cant validate anything you say then why should I believe you?

Skeptic !

<<I find it interesting how this thread is beginning to be focused on my last section "External Parties"

"Documentation" isn't all you crack it up to be... Isshin Ryu has been having document wars for years, mostly because Shimabuku Sensei had a sense of humor and told everybody he promoted and sent to the United States that "you're in charge of Isshin Ryu in the U.S.". Over the years, I've seen some absolutely hilarious confrontations over "documents" that were "issued by so and so"... "These are fakes because he only used RED ink when he stamped certificates..." and it goes on and on from there.

If you founded a legitimate style, the technical and "legal" aspects of it are pretty simple. You document your techniques or the methods being used, and then perform the techniques before a legitimate organization who can determine if your methods and techniques meet "muster". If they do, you can consider yourself "legitimate", if not... it needs work. It's the example set by the Danzan Ryu style of Jujutsu.

The paper trail of "styles" and systems are all pretty well paved with "fees" for testing and certificates, and you can find all kinds of "crossover" ranks issued for switching from one organization to another one... with or without a test, that are all "mainstream" martial arts. Now that "certificates" are money makers, the organizations do all they can to keep the cash flow increasing... up to and including sending certificates by email.

One of the reasons I always sought out "master instructors" was because their reputations and organizations were all solidly built on good martial arts. There were always "splinter groups" that came off them, but the main thrust of training with a true "master instructor" doesn't change much.

Two of my old teachers are dead now, and I don't have a certificate from either one of them... but I valued their teaching and friendships very highly. You're welcome to razz me about the "studied with dead instructors" if you want to... but it didn't happen in a vacuum... there were plenty of other people there to witness our training... and unless you're claiming that you trained privately with one of the dead masters, there should be corroberation that you did... pictures with them, if nothing else.

45 years ago, there were no "organizations" that were certifying anything to do with martial arts. We had to drive for hours just to find instructors... some good, some bad... and we ran into plenty of them that left Japan or Korea as a nidan and landed as 6th, 7th, or 8th Dans or "master so and so"... The legitimate ones "had the goods"... the others, just ran scams...

In the late sixties or early seventies, the U.S. Judo Association sued the International Judo Federation over the issuing of rank certificates and their use as a means of keeping American competitors out of international judo tournaments. The finding of the court was that "all rank had to be accepted in open competition", and that each country should set up a governing body of it's particular sport to oversee that function. Today, there are still splinter groups of every martial art, no central authority(except in a few sports that are done at the Olympic level) and all the hounds still baying at the moon about "legitimate" and "illegitimate" rank.

To show you how crazy it is, when I tested for my Nidan in Judo, I scored high enough to be ranked Godan (5th Degree). I had no longevity with the association where I was testing, so they would only issue the Nidan certificate... for years, I got a letter every year offering me some kind of promotion if I just sent in my money, and was actually offered higher rank than I scored on my test when a splinter organization started up... so much for "testing standards"...

The proof of martial arts is "on the floor" and "on the mats". Training is training, and it can be good or bad... want to spot a faker?... put the pressure on him in a class or in randori... not in a chat room. If he's any good, he can stand his ground.

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What man is a man that does not make the world a better place?... from "Kingdom of Heaven"